Blog 13

Ted Conover is the ultimate immersion journalist. He goes as far as playing the role of an illegal immigrant, living without any luxuries and being in the brotherhood of a pack in Mexicans for the good of the story.

His purpose for writing “Coyotes” is to describe to the reader a day in the life of a misunderstood social group. By doing this he transports the reader into the reality and everyday life of an illegal immigrant.

Conover uses scene construction to describe his surroundings. For example, when he has to pile into an Impala with 8 other grown men and eat his McDonalds in the tight space he gives the reader a sense of the physical and psychological closeness that is associated with being in this Mexican brotherhood. He also used dialogue to accentuate some of the important conversing among characters. For example:

“I’ll tell you what my wishes are…You know what I would like? What I would prize most of all? A green card!”

Conover also puts all Spanish dialogue in italics in order to show when Spanish is spoken. Word choice is important in the piece to convey his relations with the other Mexicans. For example he expresses his need to convey “some wolfish hunger” to prove his manliness. He also describes that avoiding eye contact is a “necessary survival skill.” This accentuates that the Mexicans are actually fighting for survival.

The plot basically takes the reader through a typical evening he spends with the Mexicans. A narrative thread is the main character Martin and how he takes care of the other Mexicans that do not have as much money as him. He buys dinner and beers for the other Mexicans and Conover even though he is described as being on the poverty line. The narrative goes further than to just describe a day in the life but to illustrate a mutual connection, simple moments, joys laughter while facing uncertainty and struggle. He describes Martin as nicer than 99 percent of the people he knows. It is a story of hope, friendship, and morality of man.

Ten Conover is considered one of the best of the new new journalists not only because of his writing style but of his technique of completely submerging himself in the culture he is documenting at the time. This participant-observer style usually means a complete change of lifestyle for Conover, especially coming from the upper-middle class. For his senior thesis at Amherst, Conover gave up all if his luxuries and became a train-riding hobo in order to document this subculture of traveling non-conformists. Out of this came Rolling Nowhere (1984). He did the same thing for Coyotes(1987), where he traveled around with illegal Mexican immigrants, crossing the border multiple times. For Whiteout (1991), Conover worked as a reporter and cab driver to document Aspen’s celebrity culture. Again for NewJack (2000), Conover got a job as prison guard at Sing Sing in order to observe the subculture of prison guards. Conover documents subcultures that are foreign to most readers with an unbiased tone, neither pitying, or praising, simply documenting their lifestyle.

            Although Conover never studied journalism, he worked at a variety of small newspapers when he was younger. Conover instead took a liking to Anthropology, which he credits to be what sparked his interest in seemingly insignificant subcultures. He chooses to saturate himself in the subculture’s environment to get all of the unseen, unspoken, hidden detail that a simple interview can’t get. He thinks that the emotional toll is worth it to get a good story.

            Conover always has an unbiased attitude going in. He credits this to his grade school days where he was bussed in to an interracial school in which he was the minority. He describes this as “liberating”.

            He chooses his stories based on which groups have conflict and change. He then finds the appropriate place and job in order to properly observe his subjects. For NewJack, he completed 7 weeks of training and then worked as a prison guard for 10 months to complete his story. He had to be in complete secret or else he would have been fired or worse. For Coyotes, he traveled with immigrants for 9 months, crossing the border multiple times.

            Conover’s strategy for getting a good story is to try and fit in as much as possible, becoming the character in outward appearance without crossing the line of being so submerged in the lifestyle that you forget to observe. He claims he is always himself although admitting a lot of it is performance based.

            Conover prefers interviews in person to observe a person’s body language and actions.  He relies in small spiral notebooks, which he writes down notes in, while undercover. He opens conversation by first speaking about himself and his past, which gives his subject a sense of trust then asking leading questions.

            Although Conover is submerged in the subjects he writes about, he always keeps his identity as an American journalist. It is almost as if he putting on an act for the sake of fitting in. Dennis Covington on the other hand is open about the fact that he doing a story and seems to be doing “Snake Handling and Redemption” to satisfy his own personal curiosities.

            Covington structures his piece into tiers. He starts off by telling the reader about his own personal love for snakes. He talks about his personal history with snakes and his own history of himself. The first half of the story is about him. He even goes as far to discuss his alcoholism and infertility with the reader. The second part of the story is a factual account of poisonous snakes, something you would find on animal planet: Facts about colors, disposition, danger factor, etc. The third part of the piece goes into the main subject of the sort: a church that uses snake handling to praise god. He describes the church and some expressive personalities and then moves into the last part of the piece, which ties all previous tiers together, his personal experience with snake handling and redemption. He ultimately sees the light and is moved by this act of snake handling.

            Word choice is used throughout this piece in an ironic fashion. For example:

           

“I was hung over. My first wife Susan and I had taken a Sunday drive to visit old cemeteries. It was springtime, and tarantulas were crossing the road in droves.”

This sentence is full of a very distinct word choice. “My first wife” and “In droves” go to show his distinct and rather ironic language. Status detail is also prevalent in this piece. He describes his religious experience as well as the characters he encounters. There is a lot of dialogue in the piece; mainly between himself and the character he encounters which goes to express his feelings about the religious experience he shares with them. For example Brother Charles tells him to be careful who he takes a snake from which is in fact a bigger allegory in the story an encompasses a notion of trust.

            Covington is a participating writer in this piece with a lot of the story focused around him. The story is written in first person. He is invested in the subjects because of his childhood, ancestors, and personal affiliation with snakes. The piece was about the practice of snake handling and his self-discovery.

Question for the class:

Is Ted Conover in fact committing a moral crime by misleading his subjects into trusting him or is he doing them a favor by writing the story about their struggles in the first place? Is Covington more justified by identifying himself as a journalism up front?